Today's Opinions

A front-page story today shares news from a public hearing Wednesday on a proposed coal-gasification plant in Spencer County. While that county’s leaders will have a say in whether the $2.65 billion project moves forward, those of us in Perry County should have input into the suitability of the plant.

When it comes to air quality, what passes over Spencer County crosses into Perry. We breathe the same air.

I always respect an opinion on a controversial issue that might be different from my own opinion, even the current right-to-work bill currently being debated in the Indiana General Assembly. And I know that those who support right-to-work and those who don’t have different fact sheets, different polls and different motives for wanting this bill passed or wanting it defeated.

The onslaught of pressure to bring us a synthetic natural gas plant that is being exerted by elected public officials, coal-company operators and so-called technocrats who want us to believe they can wave their magic wands and produce “clean coal” scares me.

If we were not already living in a veritable sea of toxic pollutants that has been produced primarily by the use of coal, I might understand their eagerness to pour more on us.

I remember well a night many years ago when a dear friend who was adamantly pro-choice came to me, sobbing uncontrollably.

With defenses down, she unloaded a heavy burden she had long carried – a few years before she had chosen to abort her developing baby. She told me that not one day had passed that she did not think about her baby and regret her decision. My heart ached for my friend, as she was clearly tormented by her decision.

Our state is considering becoming a right-to-work state, making it the first one since Oklahoma in 2001 to end coerced unionism.

There are currently 22 right-to-work states. Most of the remaining states require workers at a place of employment to join a union and pay their dues if 51 percent of the workers at that place of employment vote to have a union. The other possible 49 percent of workers who don’t want a union must still pay hefty union dues each month to bosses who spend much of that money supporting leftist political agendas like Barack Obama’s.